data retention – Page 3

08 March 201508 March 2015

Weekly Wrap 248: Logic, rants, and a pleasing balance

My week of Monday 2 to Sunday 8 March 2015 was productive, although not everything happened in the sequence that I’d intended, and not everything has appeared yet.

Articles

Australian lawmakers can’t use phones, will vote on data retention, ZDNet Australia, 3 March 2015. It’s kind of a rant, but now that the internet has been commercially available in Australia for 20 years, such ignorance is inexcusable.

I also wrote a feature story and another column for ZDNet Australia, but they’re both still working their way through the production pipeline.

Podcasts

“The 9pm Shut Up It’s Called Logic”, being The 9pm Edict episode 38. It’s also available on SoundCloud. This is another hour-long episode, which took about 10 hours to produce, what with all the ancillary tasks.
I also wrote up the results of “The 9pm Summer Scrounge”, the rather half-based subscriber drive for The 9pm Edict.

5at5

There were actually six editions of 5at5 this week, on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. You should subscribe, you know.

Media Appearances

On Monday I was quoted at Telecom Ramblings by Don Sambandaraksa:

Gemalto 3G/4G SIMs must be “…ultra-mega super-magical. With extra cyber unicorns,” ZDNet Australiaâ€™s Stilgherrian said of its ability to be secure even though keys were compromised.
On Tuesday night, I spoke about various tech stories on ABC 702 Sydney, but there’s no recording.
On Thursday, I spoke about Airpnp and sharing economy on ABC 105.7 Darwin.

Corporate Largesse

I received a copy of the second novel in John Birminghamâ€™s new series, Resistance: A Dave Hooper Novel 2, which is rather lovely. I’ll be reading it soon, because I really liked the first book in this series.

The Week Ahead

Monday will be a day of communication and planning, wrapping up with drinks and, I suspect, dinner with friends in Katoomba. Tuesday is not yet allocated to anything specific.

Wednesday will see a day trip to Sydney for a lunchtime briefing by MuleSoft. Thursday will probably see another long commute for a morning briefing by Deloitte, although I may just dial in instead. Somewhere in there, I’ll write a column for ZDNet Australia.

Friday through Saturday are unplanned at this stage. But since I didn’t visit Albion Park today to watch Qantas land their Boeing 747, I may visit the Historical Aircraft Restoration Society (HARS) for one its open days — which can be any of those three days. I’ll have to figure out which would work best, given the rest of my schedule.

Further Ahead

I’ll be in Melbourne from Tuesday 17 to Sunday 22 March for the Cisco LIVE event and then a couple days of meetings and the like. If you feel the need to catch up, or any other urges, please let me know.

[Photo: Downpour at Katoomba station, photographed on 1 March 2015. Technically that’s outside the timespan covered by this post, but I’m beyond caring any more.]

21 February 201525 January 2019

The 9pm Malcolm and the Cnuts

Malcolm Turnbull launching NICTA Techfest 2015

Attorney-General Soapy the Ankle QC demonstrates his openness to new information. And Malcolm Turnbull invents a new future for Australia. It’s a turbulent future, and Turnbull says we just have to deal with it.

In this podcast — an episode that should never have happened — there’s talk of technology, foreskins, special new jargon terms, and the media.

24 January 201524 January 2015

Weekly Wrap 241: Extended gut symptomatics, apparently

My week of Monday 12 to Sunday 18 January 2015 was another unproductive one, thanks to the intestinal problems continuing. Or maybe it was a new one arriving. Either way, it was terrible.

I don’t think I’ll even bother putting a photograph on this post. It’s late enough as it is.

That said, this seems to have been the week that the Australian media returned to work, because I did four spots in total.

Articles

Brandis takes the data-retention debate beyond logic, ZDNet Australia, 12 January 2015.

5at5

There were only two editions of 5at5 this week, on Monday and Tuesday. You might want to subscribe so you receive them all in the future. Subscribe. Just subscribe.

Media Appearances

On Tuesday, I spoke about various political hacks on Sydney radio 2UE.
On Wednesday, I spoke about the #optuswrongtime network time failure on ASBC Radio’s AM.
Also on Wednesday, I spoke about #optuswrongtime on ABC Gold Coast.
On Thursday, I spoke about various technology issues on ABC News24, but I didn’t organise a recording.

Corporate Largesse

None.

21 December 201421 December 2014

Weekly Wrap 237: The week before Christmas, kinda

My week of Monday 15 to Sunday 21 December 2014 was more stressful than I thought it might be, for reasons which may be alluded to in a future edition. However I will say that Mistress Insomnia was a persistent guest in my life. I hate her.

But on with the show…

Articles

Uber’s ‘asshole culture’ on full display in Sydney CBD siege, Crikey, 16 December 2014. I don’t think the headline is quite right. It was Uber’s tin ear that was on display on Monday. Their “asshole culture” is more pervasive. Both are mentioned in the article.
Note to data-retention law makers: The internet is not a telephone, ZDNet Australia, 19 December 2014.

5at5

Another full week for 5at5, with emails going out on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. You might want to subscribe so you receive them all.

Media Appearances

On Tuesday, I spoke about a variety of technology topics on ABC 720 Perth. This is the first of a new regular spot over summer called “Tech Wreck”, at 1430 AWST / 1730 AEDT.

Corporate Largesse

Sourcefire’s 2015 Snort Calendar arrived in the post. If only had somewhere to hang it.
I also received a copy of John Birmingham’s latest novel, Emergence, from the author himself. What a nice chap.

The Week Ahead

This is barely even a tentative plan, because it’s based on the assumption that a certain large media organisation will pay their goddam bills. If that doesn’t happen on Monday, then a lot of this will have to change. Nevertheless, we have to start somewhere, right?

Monday sees the Solstice, which happens at 1003 AEDT, followed by the New Moon at 1236. I’ll conduct a small ritual centred around those times. Before that, though, certain urgent organisational tasks need to be dealt with. And after that, I’ll start work on the next episode of The 9pm Edict podcast, which has the working title “The 9pm Christmas Nazis”.

On Tuesday, I’ll be writing for ZDNet Australia in the morning, I think, before heading to Sydney for some errands and the ABC at Ultimo to do the 720 Perth spot. I may stay in Sydney overnight, or I may not.

On Wednesday, I’ll be completing The 9pm Edict, as well as tying up several billion loose ends before the holidays descend.

Thursday is Christmas Day, which will be spent quietly because family is small and distant. I’m not sure whether I’ll be in Wentworth Falls or Sydney or somewhere else at this stage.

While Friday is a public holiday, I’d originally scheduled a server migration to start that day. However that’s now looking like that’ll have to change too. The weekend is unplanned, at least at this stage.

Update 1750 AEDT: Edited to add the New Moon time and to clarify some of the exposition.

[Photo: Wires, a view from Katoomba railway station in the Blue Mountains, photographed on 15 December 2014.]

30 November 201402 December 2014

Weekly Wrap 234: Scallops and disruption

My week of Monday 24 to Sunday 30 November 2014 was, quite frankly, irritating — for reasons that I won’t detail here. The end result was that I didn’t get to take part in some of the social and semi-social events that I’d planned to. I am grumpy.

Articles

Australia’s data-retention plans look increasingly out of touch, ZDNet Australia, 26 November 2014.
Infosec checklists becoming common, but they’re not magic, ZDNet Australia, 28 November 2014.

5at5

The only edition of the 5at5 email newsletter that I got out the door was Monday. There will be more this week, so why not subscribe so you receive them all?

Media Appearances

On Tuesday, I spoke about the Regin spyware on ABC Radio’s The World Today.

Corporate Largesse

On Tuesday, I went to AVG Technologies’ Christmas media lunch and briefing at est restaurant. They paid for the excellent food and wine, of course. I had the scallops and smoked eel (pictured above), the beef and the chocolate. They also gave us an AVG-branded umbrella and a branded USB hub.

The Week Ahead

This is the week where freelancers switch from the always-busy November to the stressful process of solving a specific, annual problem: How can I ensure that there’s enough cashflow to survive Christmas, New Year and through to the end of January, when all the usual sources of income are dry? Wish me luck.

(It’s actually quite depressing to see people starting to add Christmas motifs to their Twitter avatars and otherwise talking about “the festive season” when one’s own time is anything but festive. Sigh.)

With that in mind, Monday is a day of administrivia and planning, and Tuesday will be dedicated to production for The 9pm Edict podcast. I think a pre-Christmas subscriber drive will come out of that. That work will continue on the days after that, along with online briefings at 0830 and 1400 on Wednesday, and at 0600 on Thursday. Somewhere in there I’ll also write a column for ZDNet Australia.

On Friday I’ll be heading in to Sydney for a briefing by BAE Systems, and then ~~the (in)famous Watterson PR Christmas lunch~~ Cisco’s end-of-year lunch at Gastro Park. The weekend thereafter is unplanned.

[Update 2 December: Edited to reflect change to Friday’s commitments.]

[Photo: Scallops and smoked eel — or, more completely, grilled scallops, smoked eel, baby leeks, wakame, shiso, yuzu — all being an entrÃ©e at est restaurant, Sydney, photographed on 25 November 2014.]

20 October 2014

Corrupted Nerds on metadata, surveillance and privacy

Last Wednesday I had the very great pleasure to moderate an event titled “Data Retention: the European Experience”, a public conversation with Privacy International’s legal director Carly Nyst. The audio from the event forms the latest Corrupted Nerds: Conversations podcast.

This is a live issue in Australia right now. Australia’s favourite Attorney-General, Senator George Brandis QC, has said, “This is very much the way in which western nations are going, it’s been the case in Europe under the European Data Retention directive for some little while now.” Except that’s not true.

What Brandis didn’t say was that the European Court of Justice has declared the blanket recording of telecommunications data to be a breach of human rights. It isn’t a proportionate response to the claimed threat, and there’s no evidence that it’ll actually even help.

Europe is now winding back data retention. Well, except for the UK.

In this hour-long conversation, Nyst and I discuss the legal and historical background to data retention; the risks of the blurring law enforcement and foreign signals intelligence-gathering for national security; the revelations of Edward Sowden; and whether Australia really does have robust democratic institutions which can protect us from the risks of surveillance over-reach.

The event was organised by Electronic Frontiers Australia and the Australian Privacy Foundation.

Please, listen to the entire podcast. Or, if you prefer a quick read, try my op-ed at ZDNet Australia today, Will metadata musings ever mature beyond paranoid fears?

Subscribe to all Corrupted Nerds podcasts via RSS, iTunes and SoundCloud.

If you enjoyed this podcast, why not make a tip, or even subscribe? Every contribution helps me provide these podcasts for free.